Nothing
by bedgebog
Summary: Keller yearns for Beecher while locked up in PC. (S5)


Title: "Nothing"  
  
Author: bedgebog (bedgebog@yahoo.com)  
  
Rating: R  
  
Pairing: B/K, K's POV  
  
Archive: Go for it.  
  
Spoilers: None really. Set somewhere in Season 5, with Keller still in PC.  
  
Disclaimers: Not mine. Borrowed from Fontana, HBO, et  
  
al.  
  
Feedback: I certainly wouldn't mind.  
  
Notes: Keller's voice is fucking hard! Forgive if I didn't get it quite right.  
  
I miss Toby. I miss his pale blue eyes, and the smell of his hair when he lets me wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his neck. I miss his sly smile. God, I wish he were here, wrapped in my arms, or asleep beside me, his sweet head resting in the crook of arm. The odd thing about us is how safe I feel when I'm holding him - that shouldn't make sense, that doesn't make sense, but that's how it feels.  
  
The truth is that we don't make sense in any way that anybody's head understands, but we feel right - our bodies, and our hearts. Our pod always was homey, which also made no sense, because it was concrete and unpainted metal, and a drain in the center of the floor. But I'd come back from the gym or work in the storage room, and Toby'd be there, camped out on his bunk with another fucking book, and I'd be home. More home than I've ever been anywhere, expect on my bikes somewhere out West, on a road that belongs to no one. Half the time he wouldn't even look up at me. He didn't need to. He knew I was there, I knew he knew he I was there. If he had something to say he'd say it, if he wanted to look at me he would. In the meantime he was finishing the book.  
  
He'd always watch me leave though. Me coming to him was natural, it needed no notice. The bitchy little fuck usually didn't even say hello, but he'd never take our goodbyes for granted. The goodbyes are heavy, disordering, a profound kind of imbalance. Pain of one kind or another. That's were the disconnect is - where the wrong is - when we're apart, when we part. When he was in the hospital after I broke his arms, the weight of the guilt was - unbearable, but the true burden was the emptiness. Toby's being gone from the pod connected straight to him being gone in my heart. He was there, for me, but I knew that he'd walked out of the place he kept for us in his own heart and slammed the door. And we kind of share that space, that Toby-Chris space in our hearts. That makes no sense, but mostly I wanted him to be there. Hating me, loving me, whatever. Just there. I need him near me.  
  
And now he's near, so close I get the chills when I wake up. I realize I'm in the same building as him, that he's - that's he close. And I'd claw through the concrete if I thought I'd get me to him. I'd pull the bars apart. But it won't. There's a hundred nightsticks and tasers and plexiglass walls between me and him. So instead I close my eyes and hide under the pillows and forget what time it is, what day it is, where I am. I forget everything. I remember everything.  
  
He'd bring me books from the library. I don't read so much. I don't read very well, really, but he'd always bring me some space story or some dragonslayer story. He'd toss it at me and say, hey, you might like this. I didn't read most of them, but I'd love it that the idiot would think about bringing me a book. He's always trying to get me to improve myself. I don't care about that school stuff, and he doesn't care about that school stuff, but I think he thinks I care about that stuff, secretly, so he tries to nudge me, so it's like he's making me do it, and so it's not like I feel bad, but I'm trying to improve myself for him, not me. Which is better. Does that make sense? No. Oh well. Anyway, the ones I read - it is pretty fucking boring in here - were good, but mostly I like that he brought me stuff.  
  
Sometimes I'd drag myself up to that creaky top bunk with one of those raggedy old books, like I was going to read it while he read some gigantic hardback about Prussian history or whatever else got his rocks off. He'd scoot over, and kiss me on the cheek, and take my right hand in his left and kiss my knuckles and my fingers, never once taking his eyes off the pages. Selfish asshole. Still, it worked. It was like we were, I dunno, the same thing. It was us, not me and him. He didn't have to think about touching me or loving me, it just was. After while, I'd get this feeling in the pit of my stomach. Empty and full at the same time and it'd be too much to bear, how much I adored him, his eyes flicking over the words, his free hand turning the pages so fast. And at the moment I couldn't stand loving him anymore, he'd turn to me and grin, the tease. He'd grin and let go of his book. Fucking punk.  
  
He'd let go of the book, and it'd fall off the side of the bunk, and later that night or the next morning I'd pull it out from below the bed near the wall and throw it back up to him. He'd let go of the book and slid his hand beneath my shirt. "I love you Toby." "I know." "Fuck you." And he'd kiss me, and my mind would go blank - not so different really from how full his brain is when he's thinking - and the world would be nothing but Toby. His lips and that velvet tongue tasting everything I have to give, and doing unspeakable things to my lower lip. Shit. Toby, where I you?  
  
Fuck. I wish for the other times when nothing was happening, and everything was happening because it was nothing and nothing is the smallest and most important unit of life. Life is 25,000 days of nothing, strung together, into everything. He'd be shaving and I'd grab the razor, and throw him against the wall, just to grind my hard dick into his groin and tease him, shaving him and taking my time with his bristly jaw, making him throb and push up into me, and yet be unable to struggle too much - I had a blade to his neck. It was all a big tease. We wouldn't kiss until he was clean-shaven, not because we couldn't but because it was ritual. And then when he was clean-shaven, I'd wipe away the remaining shaving cream with my finger tips - any excuse to touch his face - and he'd just wait for me to kiss him, never doubting that I would come. And I would come to him, and we'd both come into other, over each other, for each other.  
  
I love watching Toby doing nothing - of course, he's usually conniving like a bandit every minute it looks like he's doing nothing - but I like watching him be still, because he's my darling Toby, and I feel everything about him. Everything inside, every lovely thing outside. I feel him now, you see, and I want to know that the vibrating echo of our last kiss isn't the final echo of us. I want this ringing, cringing heart of mine to stop shuddering. I want Toby. I miss him.  
  
I want him in here, ignoring me and containing me and living inside me all at once. I want the moment when he looks up at me, all restrained adoration and forgiveness and peace and simple love, and the snap of nerve and lust and electricity I feel when he brushes against me, when I pull on one of his shirts and smell his detergent and the faint scent of old sweat, the feeling I feel when his hand reaches for me, when he curls against me in the dark, when he touches my neck. I want the quiet comfort of nothing special. I want the reminder that what we have is remarkable in its simplicity. It's perfect because it's natural, because it's the way things are supposed to be. It's a pacific ocean, the effortless love of my Toby, it's everything, it's life and drowning death and reflected blue sky.  
  
I miss Toby. 


End file.
